


Agnorum Dei

by Pantheris



Series: Halo: War Dog [1]
Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Child Soldiers, Childhood Trauma, Gen, Office Of Naval Intelligence, Original Spartan Characters - Freeform, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Psychological Trauma, SPARTAN-II, SPARTAN-III, Spartan-III Program
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 16:54:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24160138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pantheris/pseuds/Pantheris
Summary: They promised her power. They promised her vengeance. They promised her that she would be a hero.She was only a child, newly-orphaned and lost without her mother... how was she to know they were lying?
Series: Halo: War Dog [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1743541
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	Agnorum Dei

"Tell me, little one, do you want revenge on the people who hurt you?"

The child looked at the man sitting on the empty bed across from her with large, almost unnervingly pale blue eyes, and just stared at him entirely too calmly. Little hands nervously twisted the hem of her bedsheet as she seemed to weigh each of his words. Outside the door, an attendant quietly ushered a small group of children - war orphans, all of them - down the hallway, speaking in hushed whispers that soon receded into the distance.

"How? I am just... small." She finally asked, her voice tinged with a thick French accent that he would have pegged as from Meridian, if he hadn't known better.

_Her mother was originally from Meridian, though, wasn't she? Weren't **her** parents Insurrectionists? It's nothing short of a miracle that she ever ended up with her husband._

"To put it simply," he replied, "we will take you to a special school, of sorts, where you will learn how to fight better than any UNSC Marine, and we will make you stronger and faster and bigger, too."

"Bigger?" She stared at him with a kind of skepticism one only found in children who suspected they were being lied to; he just smiled disarmingly.

"Yes, bigger. Big enough to hurt the people who took away your mother."

The girl's brow furrowed deeply as she looked away, chewing her lip and ducking her head to hide her face behind a veil of mousy brown hair. She seemed so very, very small and so very frightened... but so had most of her soon-to-be peers. It was so terribly easy to pare away that fear and uncertainty, though. _All one had to do was appeal to their childish anger._

"You are - you are saying that... that I could be... being like these soldiers?"

" _Better_ than those soldiers, little one. Far, _far_ better." He spread his hands wide as if to show the vast gap between mere Marines and what she could become, and his smile broadened into a grin. "The Covenant isn't afraid of _them_ , but they would be _terrified_ of you."

She said nothing as she mulled over what he'd said, staring at a patch of yellow sunlight that spilled across the floor.

Slowly, hesitantly, the girl finally nodded.

"Very good." He leaned over and reached one hand out to her, as if to seal the deal with a handshake. She tentatively placed her tiny hand in his; the sight was almost comical, he thought. "I will go finalize the paperwork, and we will leave this evening."

Once again, she just nodded, fixing him with those icy blue eyes as he rose to his feet. With a feigned sense of playfulness, he ruffled her hair, and chuckled when she reached up to swat his hand away.

"I look forward to seeing you then, Miss DeLacroix."

As he left the sunny little room, Novikov's smile turned smug; there would, of course, be no _paperwork_ , no signature to leave a paper trail, only a comm to his superiors to clear the way.

But he _would_ be leaving this place with his latest acquisition for Ackerson's Spartan-III program before the day was out...


End file.
